


Seeds

by Edonohana



Category: New Mutants (Comics), X-Men (Comicverse)
Genre: Gardens & Gardening, Gen, Limbo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:08:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28334382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Edonohana/pseuds/Edonohana
Summary: Ororo has a garden. There’s not much I can be sure of, but I’m sure of this. It’s true in both the worlds I know. Maybe it’s true in all worlds, all timelines, all dimensions where there’s an Ororo.
Comments: 7
Kudos: 20
Collections: Yuletide Madness 2020





	Seeds

**Author's Note:**

  * For [genarti](https://archiveofourown.org/users/genarti/gifts).



Ororo has a garden. There’s not much I can be sure of, but I’m sure of this. It’s true in both the worlds I know. Maybe it’s true in all worlds, all timelines, all dimensions where there’s an Ororo.

My Ororo, who was a sorceress in Limbo, had a garden. She still does, of a sort. I made sure of that. I didn’t dare use magic to restore it, for that would have created some botanical nightmare. Instead, I brought seeds from Earth and scattered them about the fertile earth that was all that was left behind after Belasco destroyed the garden with an ice storm and I destroyed the oak that was all that remained. She had used magic to create its acorn, but the seed and its growth weren’t magic. Nor was anything else in her garden. It turned out that even in Limbo, you could grow plants with nothing more than sunlight and water. 

It’s not a true garden like she’d made, more of a meadow with flowers and a few spindly saplings. It’s pretty, though. But I rarely dare to set foot in it. I’m afraid I might contaminate with the evil inside me. It’s a silly fear, perhaps, since I have demons doing the watering. But the ones I set to that task are very small evil, embodiments of cowardice or gluttony or the simple bloodlust of a predator. I am a very large evil. I have that potential, at least.

The Ororo I know now, the one leads the X-Men, also has a garden. It is much smaller, but full of life. I have also rarely dared to set foot in it, but for a different reason. It is Ororo’s private place, the essence of herself. She goes there to relax, not to fight or discuss any formal matters. If she met me there, we might have an actual conversation. 

This Ororo knows I grew up in Limbo. She knows I’m a sorceress. But she doesn’t know any of the X-Men survived, to suffer and be twisted and die many years later. If I have my way, none of them will ever know.

This is why it’s so awkward that we’re both in her garden now.

“I thought,” Ororo explains, “That you and Kitty might like a plant for your room.”

Of all the possible reasons that had gone through my mind when she’d asked me to come to her garden, that had not been one of them. “A plant?” 

“Yes. Something pretty, with a pleasant scent, which will not die if you occasionally forget to water it.” Ororo indicated a small white pot containing a plant with purple-blue flowers. “Smell.”

I bent down and sniffed at the flowers. They did have a nice scent. In fact, it was a scent I knew. Kitty occasionally wore an old-fashioned perfume that smelled of… “Violets.”

“These are hybrids. They have the scent of English violets, but like African violets grow well indoors.” She smiled. “You will not find them in any store on Earth. I got mine when last we visited with the Starjammers.”

I looked at them with renewed interest. “I didn’t realize you had plants from outer space.”

“Only this. I thought you and Kitty might like it. I know she likes the scent of violets.”

Ororo notices things about people. That, too, is always true. My Ororo noticed my innate potential as a sorceress, and the potential for evil that Belasco forced on me. This Ororo lives in a gentler world, at least compared to Limbo.

“What do you like?” Ororo asks.

“Electric Youth by Debbie Gibson. I’m wearing some now.”

“I meant, is there any flower or herb whose scent you enjoy?” She gestures with a long-fingered hand, indicating a row of pots about the same size as the violets. “Any of these would grow nicely in your room.”

I knelt down and sniffed at the plants. They all smelled pleasant, more or less, some sweet and some herbal. A few could be used for sorcery—not by themselves, but as a spell component. I thought about taking one of those, but why bother, when all I ever needed to do to get spell herbs was visit Limbo?

For the first time, I wondered where those herbs came from. I always just ordered my demons to fetch them. Did they gather them wild, or did they have an herb garden somewhere on the palace grounds? It was hard to imagine demons watering plants…

…except they did, of course. I made them water Ororo’s garden, and it thrived. What I made them do, they were capable of doing themselves, if they chose to.

Maybe the only real difference between a human and a demon was the choices they made.

“I like this one,” I said. “The thyme. We had it in Siberia. Indoors, so the snow wouldn’t kill it.”

I hadn’t thought about our little household herb garden in years. But smelling the thyme, it all came back vividly. Parsley for borscht and chicken pie. Dill for borscht and boiled potatoes with butter. In America they put thyme in food, but my mother steeped it in hot water for tea. I’d never liked it as a child, but maybe I would now. I’d changed so much, maybe my tastes had changed too.

Ororo put the two little pots, the violet and the thyme, in my hands. “The violet should stay moist, but let the thyme dry out between waterings. Thyme is a hardy herb that thrives in harsh conditions.”

“Thanks,” I said. I wondered suddenly if this Ororo would have fared any differently in the harsh conditions of Limbo. Would she too have turned to sorcery? If she had, would she have created an acorn or a sword? 

She would have made a garden, no matter what else she did, if she’d lived long enough to have a chance. I was sure of that.

I summoned a light circle so I wouldn’t have to put down the pots to open doors, and briefly appeared in Limbo. I’d meant to go to my bedroom at Belasco’s—my castle—but I arrived in Ororo’s garden instead. My power is always unpredictable, and often influenced by whatever is on my mind.

Instead of instantly going to the room I shared with Kitty, I let the light circle blink out. The scent of thyme and violets mingled with the garden’s scent of grass and wildflowers. 

_My Ororo would like this,_ I thought, and wasn’t sure which one I was thinking of. 

I stooped, picked up a few fallen seedpods, and shook them so they rattled. I stuffed them in my pocket. I didn’t know what plant they’d grow into, but it would be something that flowered.

I summoned my light circle and appeared in my room. Kitty was lying in bed with Lockheed curled up on the small of her back, reading a computer manual.

“Hey, roomie,” I said. “Ororo gave us a little garden.”


End file.
